


Saṃsāra

by Narucch



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Canon - Anime, Canon - Manga, Canon - Rebuild, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, First Meetings, Introspection, M/M, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-12 09:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narucch/pseuds/Narucch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“My name is Kaworu Nagisa. I’m the Fifth Child. Shinji Ikari, haven’t you heard of me?”</p><p>Kaworu's first encounters with Shinji and the development of their relationship, rebirth after rebirth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rejection

**Author's Note:**

> First Evangelion fanfiction, yay!  
> It features the original dialogue lines from the manga, chapters 57 and 67.  
> Loosely based on Christianity, since, you know, _evil bishounen gay Jesus from space_.  
>  Also, [this Eva Wiki](http://wiki.evageeks.org/Main_Page) has been a great help :)  
> English is not my native language so please, if you spot grammatical horrors (ahah, pun!) or weird stuff let me know and I'll fix them ASAP :)

The first time I met Shinji-kun I didn’t even see his face.  
My memories are vague and fading. I was descending into the GeoFront dome, surrounded by the twilight rays that were reflecting in the lake. The waves were glittering and I felt something I can’t quite recall. Admiration? Yes, I was admiring the beauty of such a simple thing as twilight. Unit-01, on top of NERV Headquarters, hurled the Spear of Longinus at me, and instead of reacting, I just let the Spear impale me against the GeoFront mirrors.  
I knew that wasn’t my only occasion to return to Adam, so I was won by curiosity. Pain—I had no experience of it, nor of death. Death, in that moment, was comforting. My body was burning, torn by invisible chains. I made an effort to live, while collapsing, and that was the first step that made me appreciate Lilin.  


*

Nine days aren’t much, I was too late to realize it. SEELE’s hope was entrusted in me, and they allowed me to act freely—of course. After Shinji-kun had already killed me, I wanted to impress him, I wanted to discover the full potential of being a Lilin. I wanted to pour hope, the very reason I had existed from the start, onto him.  
I also didn’t know much about him, I had only caught a glimpse of Lilin’s fascinating mind.  
SEELE had me travel to Tokyo-3 and I was lost in the city. Somehow I could feel Shinji-kun’s presence. He was quite distant, surrounded by loneliness like a fluttering mantle. I just walked toward him, in the shadow of the skyscrapers. Cars, traffic lights… I was revising what I learnt, words and concepts that find a concrete form. A melody coming from an open window had me captivated. Music—the supreme beauty. The notes where dancing in the air and I could only imagine the true potential of Lilin, the greatness that had been achieved and was no more. I was humming that melody when I reached the suburbs of the city. He was there, I could feel it. Surrounded by debris, I was struck by my past experience of death. Greatness that was no more, glory that had been washed away by time. After some exploration, I found a piano in what looked like church ruins. The piano was covered in dust and the black lacquer was peeled at several points, but it was functioning.  
After I heard the sound produced by each key, I could play the melody that was stuck in my head. I couldn’t hear his steps, but something inside twitched and I knew he was there, listening to me.  
That’s the first proper encounter with him I can remember and it still strikes me. I was… young. Inexperienced.  
“This song…” I kept my eyes closed, my fingers were still on the keys. I could already picture him, SEELE had showed me a photograph, but I wanted to wait. “Do you know it?”  
“Huh?”  
I opened my eyes. Shinji-kun was holding a white cat in his hands. What struck me the most was his expression. He was surprised, but not as much as I had imagined. Sadness had formed a veil around his very soul, and every emotion of his was filtered through sorrow. “I heard it walking through town,” I explained. “Do you know what it’s called?”  
“It’s the _Ode to Joy_ ,” he replied. He was less pale than I expected.  
“Really.” It took me a while to process that information. I had only experienced pain, physical and mental; at that time joy was for me nothing but the realization of oneself. Only later I could experience the energy shaking my whole body, I could experience being conscious about my own heartbeat. Only later, and against his wishes. The melancholy in his eyes made me bolder. “Your uniform… you go to first Junior High?” I just wanted to start a proper conversation, and I used the basic information SEELE had given me about how Lilin society worked.  
“Um… yeah.” Shinji-kun was still holding that cat as it was a treasure. He didn’t look comfortable, he was taking relief in that little animal.  
I lifted from the piano. “Well, take me there. I’m lost,” I lied, joining him outside the church ruins. “I was never meant to be in a place like this.” I believe I had a map of the city in my pocket.  
“Are you new here?”  
It almost made me chuckle—I was already developing a sense of humor. “Sort of.” New, yes, only nine days old. That’s why all those questions followed: “And you? What are you doing here? Are you lost as well?”  
“Um, it’s like…” He was overwhelmed.  
“Why are you holding a cat?” It bugged me, just a bit. I wanted to be alone with the one whose sufferance I could perceive in my deaths. The cat meowed as Shinji-kun released him. The animal was staring at him with those big, yellow eyes.  
“You can go on, now,” he said to the white cat, that started meowing desperately. “Stop following me!” he cried, “I can’t take care of you!” The cat just followed us, of course, even after Shinji-kun yelled an ineffective: “Go!”  
So I grabbed the cat, holding him close to my heart. He would have starved, a painful death that I could qualify as bad. I regret crushing his spine, now. The cat’s desperate howl for help still sounds in my ears, and I can see his eyes, widened by terror.  
“Stop it!” screamed Shinji-kun, gripping my shirt.  
“Well. It’s dead, now.” I threw the body away, in the grass, and I regret that, too. I was young, and I know it’s not an excuse.  
“W-why… how could you do that?”  
“You said you couldn’t take care of it.”My reply was simple and rational. My mind was still utilitarian and I couldn’t understand Shinji-kun’s attachment to an animal he had probably found less than a hour before.  
“What?” His face was flushed and I like it, he was showing me something new. The sadness that permeated him was put aside, for once. “B-But you didn’t have to kill him!”  
He referred to the cat as _him_ , not _it_. I registered that detail, keeping it for later. “No… but the cat _would_ have died.” He couldn’t understand it, could he? Natural selection had been one of SEELE’s first lessons to me. “If it had a mother, it would be fed. If we both left, who else would come?” I didn’t know, at the time, what sly creatures cats are. That one was still young, though. “He’d slowly starve to death on his own.” I imitated Shinji-kun. “And if that’s all there is—then what I do is kinder.”  
He stared at me for a while, speechless. He was lost in his own thoughts, until he asked me: “Who… who are you?”  
I put my hands in my pockets and smiled. I liked that question. “My name is Kaworu Nagisa. I’m the Fifth Child. Shinji Ikari, haven’t you heard of me?”  


*

I was woken by the vibration of Shinji-kun’s mobile phone and by his moans. He was having a nightmare and hyperventilating, again. What could I do? I had no bag and I didn’t want to turn on the light and wake him up. Also, something else was growing inside me in that moment—a strange, wild desire aroused by those moans.  
In TV program that aired some hours before we went to sleep, the crying girl was comforted by a kiss of her lover.  
I leaned onto him. Shinji-kun was sweating, his cheeks were bright red. I cupped his face and my lips met his. I managed to settle his breath, but it wasn’t only it. My face was flushed, too, when Shinji-kun regained consciousness. His soft lips against mine, his frantic breath and those moans had made something grow inside me, something burning and needy, something that wanted me to continue also when Shinji-kun was awake.  
“What are you doing!” he yelled, pushing me away.  
“Hey, how does it feel?” That something inside me was the answer I had contemplated for days, but I still wasn’t sure, I still couldn’t really accept it. Shinji-kun was still short of breath, but he wasn’t hyperventilating anymore. He was staring at me in the dim light, with his eyes wide open and his mouth still parted. “How does it feel when a person comes to like another person? Wanting to touch them. Wanting to kiss them. Not wanting to lose them. What does it feel like?”  
And why Shinji-kun? I asked myself that question so many times. Because he was the one to kill me, every time? Because he was more than just a boy, and we shared a common fate? Or because of his kind self, hidden by that veil of sadness? Because of his frailty? Because he was the first one to make me cry?  
“What are you saying?”  
“All of a sudden… when we fought that angel, first thoughts and feelings flowed into me.” Were those Ayanami Rei’s? Have I carried them inside me since then, rebirth after rebirth? No. Understanding them is what made me realize my own feelings. “A tepid, sticky, disgusting feeling that seemed to slowly constrict my chest… is that love?” I was slowly accepting it. My mad heartbeat when Shinji-kun hyperventilated the first time, clinging to me, it all made sense. “If something like that was aimed at oneself, how would that feel? If you came to love me, I wonder how would that feel?” I asked him, leaning onto him to stroke his cheek.  
But instead of love, I got rejection. That feeling inside me, instead of being fulfilled, got enraged. It asked me to reply with violence, howling like a wounded beast, when Shinji-kun jumped off the bed to answer the phone.  
Sufferance is also part of the game, I learnt. 


	2. Fulfillment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “My name is Kaworu Nagisa. I’m the Fifth Child. Shinji Ikari, haven’t you heard of me?”
> 
> Kaworu's first encounters with Shinji and the development of their relationship, rebirth after rebirth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First Evangelion fanfiction, yay!  
> It features the original dialogue lines from the anime, partly taken from ep. 24 & partly from [this great EVA Wiki](http://wiki.evageeks.org/Main_Page), and the lines from the third Rebuild movie.  
> Evil bishounen gay Jesus from space strikes again!  
> English is not my native language so please, if you spot grammatical horrors (ahah, pun!) or weird stuff let me know and I'll fix them ASAP :)

That time I had called love sticky and disgusting. In the beginning that might have been the case; those feelings I held inside since then grew and grew with time. I nourished and harvested them, and they filled me with wonders. I could distinguish Shinji-kun’s mood in his voice. His eyes displayed only loneliness every new first meeting; making them alive and glittering with emotions, that was my aim. His happiness was my aim.   
That time, twilight was falling on the lake’s waves. Nature was retaking possession of that shore, covering the debris with algae. I was waiting for him on a marble statue of a winged man. From what I understood, Lilin used to call those creatures _angels_.  
I knew he couldn’t remember, but I still hummed the _Ode to Joy_. He kept still, something I was used to. “A song is good. A song brings us joy,” I affirmed. “A song is the highest culture that Lilins created.” And I could say it with cause cognition; I have died before, humming that tune, crushed by Shinji-kun’s hand or by his AT-Field. “Don’t you think, Ikari Shinji-kun?”  
I finally looked at him. He was the same 14 years old boy I knew, but I had to do it all over again. His dark hair was reddened by twilight and his eyes widened in surprise. “You know my name?”   
I carved his name on my Lilin heart death after death. “Everyone knows your name. Excuse me, but you’d better be aware of your own position.” Time changed my agenda, but my very own existence is just a tool to wipe out the sons and daughters of Lilith, so that Adam’s children could rightfully rule this world. I wanted to warn him, I knew what was going to happen: more sufferance, more loneliness for him. Death for Lilin was a companion for every Angel, and followed me as well, like a shadow.  
“Is that so? Umm, who are you?” Shinji-kun looked surprised, yet quiet. Pain had shaped his facial muscles, too, making him look almost languid. It was only the two of us there, and the sound of the waves on the sand.  
“I’m Kaworu. Nagisa Kaworu.” I smiled. I was more used to that Lilin name than to my true name. “Just like you, I’m one of the selected Children. I’m the Fifth Child.”  
“Fifth Child?” He was surprised, and I was, too. Wasn’t he expecting a replacing for the Second? “You… Nagisa-kun?”  
“Call me Kaworu, Ikari-kun.”   
He blushed and smiled. “Alright, call me Shinji.”   
After all the deaths by him, what I got was kindness. Inside me, something warm and tender grew; it made me smile. I could have a glimpse of what happiness with him would have looked like.

*

“You go to such extremes to avoid first contact. Are you afraid of connecting with other people?” The steam was swirling around us, emerging from the hot water in the bathtub. The room’s main source of lightning was a screen in front of us, with the picture of a mount, that switched every now and then with NERV’s logo. “If you don't get close to others, you'll never be betrayed and you'll never hurt each other. But you'll also never be able to forget your loneliness.” Shinji-kun was sitting next to me, lost in his thoughts. I could never expect to get so intimate with him in such a short timespan. “Humans can never banish their loneliness for good, because being human means being alone. But humans are able to go on with their lives because they're able to forget it every so often.” This had given me hope—maybe he was remembering, too? He remembered crushing my Lilin body so many times I had forgotten? I took his hand in mine and he gasped. He wasn’t alone anymore. I was there for him, _with_ him.  
He was staring at our clasped hands and he bit his lip. The screen switched off together with the dim lights and we were surrounded by darkness and wisps of steam. “It’s time,” he said after an awkward silence.  
“Is it over already?” He was changing the conversation. Yes, he had forgotten. He couldn’t truly understand me, understand what it meant to be killed countless time by your beloved, but it was alright. Lilin are limited creatures, after all. Am I not, too?  
“Yeah, we better go to bed.” That was quite bold from him. Also, I was still holding his hand.  
“Together?” I asked.  
Shinji-kun’s eyes got wide open and he stammered. “Oh, no! I think there's probably a room ready for you. A separate one,” he specified.  
“I see.” I let go of his hand and stood. The air, although filled with steam, was chilly compared to the hot water. “Humans constantly feel pain in their hearts,” I said, looking at the black screen. I turned to Shinji-kun and his cheeks were flushed—and at that time, I couldn’t really understand why. Nakedness was but a faint Lilin concept. “Because the heart is so sensitive to pain, humans also feel that to live is to suffer.” He was speechless, staring at me. “You're so delicate, like glass, especially your heart.”  
“Me?” He couldn’t believe it, just like the other time, but he wasn’t opposing my feelings.  
“Yes, worthy of love,” I explained. Underneath my skin, underneath my muscles and bones, deep within me something was moving, stretching and reaching my very core. It was something warm and tender that I was embracing with my very own will.  
“Love?” Shinji-kun asked.  
“It means,” that time I was sure. I thought that time was the one. “I love you.”  
I was wrong.

*

I wanted to make Shinji-kun happy at cost of my own happiness. I had witnessed my failures one after another, and I was ready to endure more. The shoulders of Adam’s childred can carry more burdens than Lilin’s. After I had prevented the Third Impact to happen, I had been waiting. Fourteen years. Earth pushed at its limits; life wiped out, cities completely destroyed. I had seen series and series of EVA fail to kill my fellow Angels. I had seen their corpses piling up in the hole that once had been Tokyo-3. NERV and WILLE. A new body for First. The betrayal of Second and most of NERV’s personnel.  
Fourteen Lilin years had been a lot to blend in. I wanted this time to be perfect. I wanted it to be the last one: I asked _Father_ a piano, to practice and create my own pieces. The _Ode to Joy_ was not enough anymore, I also wanted to give my contribution to the highest culture ever created.  
I felt _his_ presence while I was practicing. I just pressed on the keys with more strength, to fill his heart with the notes that could alleviate the pain destruction caused. NERV’s headquarters were hollow and empty. Tokyo-3 was no more. He had been alone for fourteen years. Did he know about the world’s conditions? Did somebody tell him? A Lilin said that ignorance is bliss, but it can be worse than knowledge—and Shinji-kun has always been hungry for answers.  
I had planted a small tree near the piano. I wanted to see it growing, I wanted to seek solace in its shadow. Sun and moon had become merciless. I opened my eyes and looked up, pressing the last keys. Shinji-kun was staring at me with his mouth slightly parted. He liked my song. That was dramatic first sight for him, I’m guilty of appreciating first impressions. Then he walked away. I just followed Father’s instruction and reached the HQ.

“What’s this? An EVA?” Confusion was sneaking into his veins like blood. Shinji-kun very much reminded me of one of the first myself that encountered him; unable to understand, deprived of the necessary knowledge. EVA-13 was hidden in that huge grotto, still in the process of being completed, and Father, older than Shinji-kun could remember, was standing on a scaffolding.   
“That’s right.”  
“Father…” I could hear resentment in his voice. I knew I had to accept the task of a teacher. I had to tell him what the others didn’t bother to reveal, because I could feel anger in Shinji-kun’s voice. Ignorance, in his case, was not a bliss.  
“Evangelion Unit 13, for you and that pilot.” What a nice way to introduce me, _Father_. After all those years, he was still treating me with coldness—so appropriate, though. A ray of light hit me and I smiled to him.  
“The piano player from earlier?” he asked.  
“When the time comes, pilot the EVA with him. That will be all.” What Father did not mention was the high synchro level required for both pilots. Not only between EVA and pilots, but one to each other. We had to deepen the knowledge, and I couldn’t wait to absorb all the shades of his character that I had missed in these years. This Shinji appeared to me as older; time was frozen for him, but still affected his body. I wondered what his mental reaction would have been, as well.  
“Wait a moment, father!” yelled Shinji-kun when his father disappeared in the shadows of the room. “I still have so many questions and things I want to talk about!” That would have been my task. A teacher, a friend… a lover. “Father!” The echo of his voice was desperate. He bowed his head, resigned. He knew Father’s ways.

*

“Stars?”  
Lying on the bare concrete, in the blood stained ruins of Tokyo-3, we were watching the stars together.  
“So, do you like the stars?” We had waited for them in silence, in the absolute nothingness of sound that this place had become. Twilight had faded, the sky had got darker and the first, glittering stars had appeared. At that time, darkness was covering us and the sky was sprayed by small dots of pure light.  
“Yeah,” he replied. “Whenever it occurred to me how vast the universe was, it would always put me completely at ease, ever since I was little.” I did not know this. Although physically distant from Shinji-kun, I felt like we were connecting like never before. With his sweet voice, he was showing me his bare soul, exposing it to me. “Fourteen years have passed, but nothing has changed. I guess I’m happy about that.” The stars and the huge, blood stained moon. Watching them with someone was different—one can play a moonlit nocturne or live it. “It makes me feel like I can stop worrying about myself and I can really calm down.” Shinji-kun let out a small laugh. “It’s hard to explain.”  
“Your feelings came through,” was my answer. “Instead of seeking change, you prefer a void, merciless abyss of a world.” I closed my eyes, inspiring that bitter air I was used to. “It’s just like you. Lying down here together is nice, isn’t it?” I asked, casually. “I didn’t know it would feel so good. Thanks for the suggestion.”  
“Oh, it’s no big deal… I just thought it’d be fun to watch the stars with you—“  
I leaned my head to my hand, tightening the other. Death after rebirth, my feelings for Shinji-kun were stronger. More tender. I was the only one who could ease his pain and see his soul truly naked. “It’s fun,” I answered. But I wanted to see more. “ I really was born to meet you.”

And even if my plan will never be accomplished, I will always value what I bring to Shinji-kun’s life, because his joy is my joy.


End file.
